Misc. Snapshots in Time

I lived in Berlin from 1961-1964. The wall went up overnight, beginning with barbed wire thrown across and dividing the city, which by treaty was to be an open city. This violated the agreement reached by the WW-2 allies. Although US personnel could cross the boundary, German citizens could not. This arbitrary division split families and caused a lot of problems. People died trying to reach West Berlin. US people traveling out of Berlin to West Germany (West Berlin had become an island of freedom inside East German) were subject to search by armed guards. If you wanted to drive from Berlin to West Germany, you were given an allotted time—and you’d better make it. While I was there, JF Kennedy was assassinated and the Cuban Missile Crisis happened.

: Brandenburg Gate 1961-2

: The Gap Between East & West Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie

: Checkpoint Charlie

: Inside the Building was East Berlin, Outside West Berlin, Flowers mark where someone jumped to their death trying to escape

: A photo from my home on Gössler-Straße, Circa 1962. The church is on a kind of circle at Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz. My father was in the Air Force at Tempelhof Air Force Base.

: Images of Berlin 1961-1964

: Church at Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz

: Looking across from Checkpoint Charlie

: Reminder of the Berlin Airlift

Matera Laser Ranging Observatory Era (Dec. 1993- May 2001) Photos. The MLRO project began at the end of 1993 / the beginning of 1994. It was a project to design, develop, build, integrate, test, and deliver a satellite and lunar laser ranging observatory that could also do two color ranging for ASI (the Italian Space Agency). The telescope was built in Pittsburgh, the dome in Jackson Mississippi, and most of the electronics and software were developed in in Maryland. We shipped to Italy at the end of 1999 and spent most of the next year in Italy, integrating with the facility and testing and training. These are a few of the many snapshots my team and I took. The system was developed to be the best of its kind in the world and featured a 60-inch (1.5m) astronomical quality telescope, a hybrid laser system based on a cw, mode-locked laser coupled with a regenerative amplifier to deliver short (<20 picosecond) pulses with a peak power of about 3 giga-watts, a timing system with a precision of 1 picosecond (a trillionth of a second) and it was highly automated with built in diagnostics and its own radar system to protect aircraft.

Matera is one of the oldest cities in the world and is located in the region of Basilicata in southern Italy. We made many friends there and I still return to visit every year or two.